The official blog of the Campaign for the American Reader, an independent initiative to encourage more readers to read more books.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

What inspires writers?

Last week the Guardian ran an item about "the sometimes very unlikely people, places and ideas that have inspired" a few writers.

One of the writers the paper queried was Lionel Shriver:

I am sometimes asked where I got the idea to write a book about an American boy who murders several people at his high school, and I have to suppress a "What, are you stupid?" expression. Unfortunately, I did not conjure school shootings from thin air. I got the idea from the newspapers. Peach-coloured sunsets may inspire many an artier writer, but I derive much of my material from black and white. On a good day, I plough through the Daily Telegraph, the New York Times (online), and the Guardian, over all of which - ask my poor husband - I never shut up. My prevailing humours inhabit a narrow range between incredulity (yesterday: to a mother exasperated that her 13-year-old has still not learned the most rudimentary maths skills, a teacher in Seattle explains that teaching students long division would "stifle their creativity") and consternation (last month: some passing yob tosses a banana peel on a car, and the driver picks it off; the council promptly gives the motorist a ticket for littering), with dashes of despair (every day: Iraq). My flat is strewn with clippings. I have a special passion for the tiny stories on inside pages that most people overlook: "Woman Finally Cures Her 40-Year Fear of Vegetables".

Obviously, any fiction writer employs personal experience. But my acquaintances are limited, and too often much like me. So I rely on the papers for a window on the lives of normal folks who don't piddle on a keyboard all day.

Click here to read Shriver's complete response as well as that of four other writers.